The Importance Of Our Hunting Heritage

Many anti-hunting protagonists debate from a standpoint that there is no place for hunting wild creatures in the twenty-first century. I’m sorry but I fail to accept that the hunting gene had a ‘use before’ date. What has modernity got to do with it? Half the world still has to hunt for (or grow) its own food. It’s a basic precept of being ‘human’. To say that we don’t need to hunt because we are intellectually superior and scientifically advanced is accepting an almost Orwellian reliance upon technology and governance. Both of which have proved unreliable, right across the planet. Contemporary Homo sapiens are becoming far ‘too soft’; not ‘too intelligent’. The skills and intuition that brought us to the top of the food chain are being lost, generation on generation. Yes, we can get meat from the supermarket shelf without getting our own hands bloodied … but somebody has to breed, feed and kill a cow, chicken, lamb or pig to allow that privilege. We could, of course, go ‘vegan’ and take a huge step backwards in evolutionary terms (which I will explain later). Non-hunters would do well to read a marvellous old book called ‘The Hunting Hypothesis’ by the anthropologist Robert Ardrey. The one certainty about Homo sapiens as a species, given all the evidence of history, is that one day our world will self-implode. When that happens … whether by natural or man-made catastrophe … there will be survivors. Both man and beast. Then everyone will cling to the hunter … not the scientist. I’m immensely proud to be a hunter and therefore bow to the hunters that came before me, across the millennia.

The great apes from which we descended in the Pleistocene era were frugivores (fruit eaters). They lived in the huge swathes of forest that teemed with vegetation and fruit. Climate change (no … it’s not a new concept) reduced the forests to small clumps of shelter between huge dry savannah plains. The savannah was populated with both passive and predatory mammals. The apes (passive) had to adapt to move around these lands to seek sustenance. Hominids evolved. Short (four foot high) and very like chimpanzees. They learned, for their own protection, to move in small groups. To traverse dangerous savannah and plains, our descendants had to adapt to stand on two legs frequently, not only to survey for danger but also to learn to run and brandish sticks, as weapons. The fossils of the first hominids are dated at around 5.5 million years ago. What was the difference between hominids and apes? There were several. Evidence from fossils shows that the former had increased brain capacity in the skull. Their dentition had reduced, indicating that hominids no longer needed to tear at the meat or protect themselves with their fangs. They had tools to do that.

There were two huge leaps (anthropologically proven) which changed the course of our evolution. The first was the neurological development of the nervous system and the hominid brain. This was dependant on cells being supplied with structural fats that can absorbed swiftly by eating meat. Hominids were too small to ‘scavenge’ or chase large predators from their catch. They learned to hunt (perhaps also trap) their own meat. The fact that meat-eating triggered the development of our ancestors and the expansion of the brain is beyond doubt. Had early man not learned to hunt and to consume meat, Homo sapiens would not exist. Around 400,000 years ago Homo erectus emerged. A biped with a brain three quarters the size of ours. No vegetarian ape could have evolved like this. The second leap was the capture and caging of one elusive piece of natural magic … fire … by Cro-Magnon man. Archaeological digs showed that hearths were commonly used during the Neanderthal period. Furthermore, they had learned that vegetation, seeds and grains could be cooked or boiled. A secondary source of the fatty acids needed to develop the nervous system and increase brain function. Thus we moved from carnivore to omnivore, expanding our facility to survive.

Modern man owes much to the Pleistocene and Cro-Magnon hunters. The necessity to gather together in small communities was borne of the need for security and protection from large carnivores. Creatures that would have ended the emergence of the early hominids. These were the first society’s. Developing from frugivores (fruit eaters) to omnivores opened out Natures larder. As our brains enlarged, so did our ingenuity. Fire brought with it the ability to survive the cold. To cook and smoke meat or vegetation, thus negating seasonality and possible putrescence. Fire allowed us to progress from flint tools, to smelt and soften metals, to create iron weapons and become more efficient hunters. We learned to fire clay and craft pots and containers. This allowed us to store and ferment food and drink. By then, of course, we had already gathered herds of beasts on which we could feed and had domesticated the wolf to help protect those flocks. Only hunters could have domesticated wolves, drawing them from the cold to the warmth of the fire with offerings of cooked meat and controlling them without endangering the encampment. Without hunting, the symbiotic relationship with the domestic dog would never have evolved. So the concept of hunting with dogs goes so far back into our evolution that it is outrageous for contemporary society to seek to forbid it.

Throughout the last three hundred years, despite our brains staying the same size, our knowledge has increased exponentially. Yet we should never lose sight of the skills and crafts that brought us to where we are today; nor the traditions that uphold these. History is as important to human development as new scientific research. Hunting is still as pertinent today as it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. There is still a need to fill the pot, control predators, remove pests and cull unhealthy animals. Many contemporary Homo sapiens just can’t understand that concept because they live in sanitised, urban environments. We now have generations in cities across the civilised world who have never seen any wilderness further away than the local park. Wildlife is a two-dimensional experience or (even worse, a trip to a zoo). They have no personal engagement with the meat they eat until it touches their teeth. Teeth which have evolved to cope with meat which has already been skinned and butchered.

Now there’s a point to consider. If we’ve outgrown the need to kill animals, perhaps we don’t need teeth any more? We have the technology to pulverise everything and suck it in through a straw. Any takers?